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The problem of 'destination amnesia'

September, 2010

Two studies demonstrate why knowing whether you’ve told someone something is difficult for all of us, and that this is particularly so as you get older.

A number of studies have found that source memory (knowing where you heard/read/experienced something) is a particular problem for older adults. Destination memory (knowing who you’ve told) is an area that has been much less studied. Last year I reported on why destination memory is difficult for all of us (my report is repeated below). A follow-up study has found not only that destination memory is a particular problem for older adults, but that it is in fact a worse problem than source memory. Moreover, destination amnesia (falsely believing you've told someone something) is not only more common among older adults, but is associated with greater confidence in the false belief.

The study compared the performance of 40 students (aged 18-30) and 40 healthy older adults (aged 60-83). In the first task, the participant read out loud 50 interesting facts to 50 celebrities (whose faces appeared on a computer screen), and were then tested on their memory of which fact they told to which famous person. In the second task, they had to remember which famous person told them which particular fact. Older adults' performance was 21% worse than their younger counterparts on the destination memory test, but only 10% worse (50% vs 60%) on the source memory test. This latter difference was not statistically significant.

The 2009 study, involving 60 students, found good reason for destination memory to be so poor — apparently outgoing information is less integrated with context than incoming information is. In the study, 50 random facts were linked with the faces of 50 famous people; half the students then “told” each fact to one of the faces, reading it aloud to the celebrity’s picture. The other half read each fact silently and saw a different celebrity moments afterward. In the subsequent memory test, students who simulated telling the facts did 16% worse. In another experiment using personal facts, it was significantly worse.

However, the final experiment found that you could improve your destination memory by saying the name of the person you’re speaking to, as you tell them. The findings also suggest that self-focus is an important factor: increasing self-focus (e.g. by telling a personal story) worsened destination memory; reducing self-focus (e.g. by naming the listener) improved it.

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